Gentle Voice

Thursday, April 21, 2011

"I am Jose Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects"

José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho (born 26 January 1963) is a Portuguese football manager. Jose Mourinho is not a man to keep his opinions to himself.
Some of his gems.

• "If I am hated at Barcelona, it is their problem but not mine. Fear is not a word in my football dictionary"
• "What position is my wife in? Eighth, at least." When told he was surveyed to be the 9th most influential man in the world]
• "Look, I'm a coach, I'm not Harry Potter. He is magical, but in reality there is no magic. Magic is fiction and football is real"
• "I have to train with 10 men [to prepare for the Barcelona semi-final], how to play with 10 men, because I go there with Chelsea, I finish with 10, I go there with Inter, I finish with 10 and I have to train to play with 10 men because it can happen again"
• "The only thing that I want to say is that we are the best ones and in normal conditions we are more than the best ones. In normal conditions we will be champions. In abnormal conditions we also will be champions."
• As Porto coach, Mourinho demonstrates the confident streak he would go on to develop later in his career: "Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one."

• On his unveiling as Chelsea manager, Mourinho reminds everyone of his achievements at Porto: "As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal. I would have been frustrated if I had been a supporter who paid £50 to watch this game because Spurs came to defend."
• A 0-0 draw against Arsenal in 2004 leaves Mourinho seething at the visitors’ defensive tactics: "I think he is one of these people who is a voyeur. He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. He speaks, speaks, speaks about Chelsea."
• Mourinho later apologized for this comment about Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger who he felt was talking a little too much about Chelsea’s affairs in 2005.
• "When I saw Rijkaard entering the referee's dressing room I couldn't believe it. When Drogba was sent off I didn't get surprised." Mourinho claimed Frank Rijkaard had met with referee Anders Frisk at half-time in a Champions League tie against Barcelona in 2005. The claim prompted Frisk to retire later that year.
• "For me, pressure is bird flu. I'm feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It's not fun and I'm more scared of it than football." Mourinho puts the game into perspective when asked about the pressure Manchester United were exerting on his Chelsea side in the title race.

• "The style of how we play is very important. But it is omelettes and eggs. No eggs - no omelettes! It depends on the quality of the eggs. In the supermarket you have class one, two or class three eggs and some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem." Mourinho became frustrated with the resources available to him in the transfer market in the final months of his Chelsea stint. He left the club soon afterwards.

• "It was a strange game. I think we all understand that it was no coincidence that he showed the red card to Sneijder. I have realized that they are not going to allow us to wrap this title up. But we were perfect. We would have won this game even with seven men. Maybe with six we would have struggled, but we would have won with seven." Mourinho after Wesley Sneijder had been sent-off in the 2-0 derby win over AC Milan in January 2010. The coach spoke on more than one occasion about an alleged ‘anti-Inter’ bias from Serie A’s referees.
• "Boredom by Ranieri? Is it like Sartre’s Nausea, which I used to study." Mourinho goes all literary after Roma coach Claudio Ranieri accuses him of being boring.
• "I am very happy at Inter. I am not happy in Italian football - because I don't like it and they don't like me. Simple." Mourinho was never in love with Italian soccer during his two year stay.
• "The way they are, tomorrow we will probably read I am to blame for the volcano. Maybe I have a friend in the volcano and I am responsible for that."
• Mourinho has been one of Barcelona’s fiercest critics after falling out with his former employers during his Chelsea career. Barca were unhappy with certain refereeing decisions in the 3-1 Champions League semi-final first leg defeat at the San Siro. They had to take a two-day coach trip to Milan due to the Icelandic volcano eruption in April 2010.
• "I am prepared. The more pressure there is, the stronger I am. In Portugal, we say the bigger the ship, the stronger the storm. Fortunately for me, I have always been in big ships. FC Porto was a very big ship in Portugal, Chelsea was also a big ship in England and Inter was a great ship in Italy. Now I'm at Real Madrid, which is considered the biggest ship on the planet." Mourinho’s unveilings can be pure theater. There was no mention of his being the ‘Special One’ as he was presented to the Madrid press, but the occasion still produced several stellar quotes.

• "I would rather play with 10 men than wait for a player who is late for the bus." Mourinho leaves his Real Madrid players in no doubt about who is boss.
• "I live and work in a world where you can’t say what you think, can never say the truth. Not being a hypocrite, a diplomat and a coward is my biggest defect." Mou finds that the Spanish also take exception to his outspoken views.
• "You can't win the treble every season. But I've done it twice and I think twice is quite a lot."
• "Luis Fernández has made this shock [defeat of Barcelona] a war of dogs. I only talk about men, not of rude children." First contact with the press, after Fernández made fun of Guardiola following his team defeating Barcelona
• "If I wanted to have an easy job I would have stayed at Porto. Beautiful blue chair, the UEFA Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me."
• "I told Mr Ferguson that United didn't deserve to leave Stamford Bridge with nothing." After beating them 1-0

• "If they made a film of my life, I think they should get George Clooney to play me. He's a fantastic actor and my wife thinks he would be ideal."
• "I would say if all the names you wrote in the last few days are correct we would have a 50-player squad and I hate to work with big squads."
• "It will be the strongest Champions League ever. Every shark will be there."
• "It's like having a blanket that is too small for the bed. You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket is made of cashmere!" During a Chelsea injury crisis
• "Young players are a little bit like melons. Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100% sure that the melon is good"

• "Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists. Our pitch is a bit like that. From the top it's a disgrace but the ball rolls at normal speed"
• "Maybe the guy drank red wine or beer with breakfast instead of milk." After a Sheffield United fan threw a bottle at Frank Lampard
• "A player from Man City showed half of his ass for two seconds and it was a big nightmare. But this is a real nightmare."Comparing Petr Cech's nasty injury with Joey Barton's bottom-baring antics
• "My wife is in Portugal with the dog. The dog is with my wife so the city of London is safe, the big threat is away." After his Yorkshire Terrier had issues with customs
• "A brilliant reaction. I hate it when players just walk off." Following Arjen Robben's sharp exit down the tunnel after being substituted against Aston Villa

• "As you know Gallas had an unbelievable holiday. I hope he enjoyed it very much in Guadeloupe, which I think is a fantastic place to be on holiday, so he wanted to stay there for a long time."On William Gallas missing the first team's trip to the United States because he was on holiday
• "Look at my haircut. I am ready for the war" + "I did it because I want to push my son to do the same. I also did it because I want to push the young players on my team to have a proper haircut, not the Rastafarian or the others they have"
• "During the afternoon it rained only in this stadium - our kitman saw it. There must be a micro-climate here. The pitch was like a swimming pool"

• "I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. Claudio Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon'"

• “As for Lo Monaco I do not know who he is. With the name Monaco I have heard of Bayern Monaco (Munich) and the Monaco GP, the Tibetan Monaco (Monk), and the Principality of Monaco. I have never heard of any others.” After Catania President Pietro Lo Monaco claimed he wanted to 'smack Mourinho in the mouth' following Inter's November 2008 Serie A win in Sicily
• "We want to follow a dream... yes, it's true, but one thing is to follow the dream, another thing is to follow an obsession... and this is not an obsession, it's just a dream"
• "We would have only lost if there were six Inter players left on the pitch." After beating AC Milan 2-0 with 9 men)

• "If FC Porto was a club of a country with another economical power, it could have done a striking season in Europe. That team was the best I have ever coached. It was destroyed due to economical factors"
• "I was more influenced by Barça's philosophy than by any other coach. They were four years of my life absolutely fundamenta."
• "I went out with frustration, it was the beginning of my career and it was a great opportunity. It was a marking point because I showed to myself that I wasn't afraid of the risks. I sent a message to myself for not having fear of the future and for not losing my identity"
• "I don't want to be, and it isn't part of my personality. I'm still going to be the same until I was today but with more responsibilities."
• "I confess that it isn't easy to enter on football with the name of someone who is already in football. I feel that with my own son. He already lives under the pressure of being a son of mine. For that I admire Rui Águas and Maldini, who managed to live with the weight of that pressure, and already did a lot"

• "The world is so competitive, aggressive, consumive, selfish and during the time we spend here we must be all but that"
• "We want to follow a dream, yes it's true, but it's one thing to follow a dream and another to follow an obsession...A dream is more pure than obsession. A dream is about pride"